There are two major reasons for understanding it from a Canadian context. The first is, of course, to ensure that we are getting the maximum out of [Technical difficulty—Editor] Americans. We cannot appear to the Americans as being a free rider.
During the Trump administration, I think we started getting a few hints that the special status—whereby it was automatically assumed that the Americans understood there was a special relationship with Canada and therefore we could probably pick and choose to a greater degree than perhaps the international environment called for—could become problematic moving into the future, and that we would be seen as separate. Therefore, we have to understand...to play our role with the Americans in a proper context to be able to respond in this ability.
The other issue going forward, of course, is that there may be situations related to national security, or a hybrid of national security, that do not involve American interests and that we still have to respond to. We started getting a bit of a flavour of it dealing with the two Michaels and having to respond, from a foreign policy perspective, to that.
However, most observers have pointed out that American support for us in that context may not always have been in lockstep, therefore it is indeed possible.... It gets back to the points that were raised earlier in terms of some of these cyber-threats. There is the possibility that Russia or China may utilize a form of attacking Canada from a cyberwarfare perspective, to basically show the Americans what is in fact possible and to therefore have a deterrent effect.
Once again, it gets to Public Safety; it gets to the ability...but it follows Dr. Fergusson's point in terms of the need to be able to respond. The bottom line is that we need to understand the threats and to play our role with our alliance system, and we can do so only by having a Canadian understanding as we move forward.